Serial killer Stephen Port, 41, has been sentenced to a whole life sentence after using lethal doses of date rape drug GHB to poison four young gay male victims.

In November 2016 at The Old Bailey, the chef was found guilty of four counts of murder, ten offences of administering a substance with intent, four rapes and four sexual assaults.

The jury heard that Port was attracted to boyish-looking men who he referred to as ‘Twinks’.

Port had a fetish for raping unconscious men and had watched violent porn featuring drugged men and women.

Using dating apps, including Grindr, Port lured his victims to his London flat then gave them the drug GHB – also known as liquid ecstasy.

Port then made his fantasies come true by slipping GHB into his victims’ drinks or applying the drug by pretending it was lubrication.

In June 2014, Anthony Walgate, 23, was found dead outside Stephen Port’s flat. Walgate, an occasional male escort, had been offered £800 by Port for an overnight date.

Credit: REX/Shuttershock. Victim Anthony Walgate, 23, who was given a drugs overdose and then raped and murdered by serial killer Stephen Port

Mr Walgate had told a friend about the arrangement “in case I get killed” – a grim prediction – he was found dead outside Port’s flat on 19 June 2014.

Port was suspected of lying to police and was charged with perverting the course of justice, but he claimed Mr Walgate died from taking his own drugs. At the time, police did not treat the death as suspicious.

Between August 2014 and September 2015, Port went on to murder his temporary flatmate, Gabriel Kovari, 22, from Lewisham, Daniel Whitworth, 21, from Gravesend, Kent, and Jack Taylor, 25, from Dagenham, east London.

The bodies of all three victims were found at a graveyard within 500m from Port’s flat.

Port, a ‘highly manipulative, devious’ individual had constructed a web of lies to avoid suspicion, telling his neighbour that Mr Kovari had died of an infection in Spain. He also invented a Facebook identity through which he lied to Mr Kovari’s boyfriend, claiming Kovari had gone to a sex party with a man named ‘Dan’.

Credit: REX/Shuttershock. Victim Gabriel Kovari, 22.

The same dog walker who found Mr Kovari’s body also found Daniel Whitworth dead in the same spot in the churchyard, lying in the exact same position, three weeks later.

A fake suicide note was found in his hand. It was a supposed ‘confession’ by Mr Whitworth for Mr Kovari’s death. It was later discovered Port had written the note but, at the time of Mr Whitworth’s death, police had accepted it as genuine.

In March 2015, Port was jailed for eight months for perverting the course of justice in relation to Mr Walgate’s death.

But the killer’s twisted urges continued and, just three months after his release, in September 2015, Port met forklift truck driver Jack Taylor, on Grindr, and lured him back to his flat.

Victim Jack Taylor, 25 (Photo: REX/Shutterstock)

Taylor’s body was found next to the same graveyard as Port’s other victims.

Following the murder, Port got rid of Mr Taylor’s mobile phone and deleted their conversation on Grindr.

A drug dealer named, Peter Hirons, 48, who unwittingly supplied serial killer Stephen Port with GHB has also been jailed for two-and-a half years.

Scotland Yard has since been severely criticised over its failure to suspect Port was a killer sooner.

An investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has been launched and 17 officers have been referred for potential disciplinary action.

Police believe there could be more victims, and is reviewing 58 deaths in London spanning four years involving the drug GHB.

Speaking after the verdicts, Detective Chief Inspector Tim Duffield described Port as ‘a voracious sexual predator who appears to be obsessed with surreptitiously drugging vulnerable young men with the purpose of drugging them. This is a highly manipulative, devious and self-obsessed individual who has never once shown remorse for his victims or their families.’

At sentencing, Judge Mr Justice Openshaw ruled that Port should die in prison.

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